In a preview of Tuesday afternoon's demonstration, Intel Marketing Director Brad Graff showed CNET News.com several of the Ultra Mobile PC devices, including an example of the kind of hardware that will ship in the next few weeks as part of the Microsoft effort. As earlier reported, the first devices have a 7-inch touch screen, standard x86 processors, and can run full versions of desktop operating systems including the Windows XP variant being used for Origami.

The problem has never been software features or else we would still have the Newton. It's been a combination of processing power to deal with media, battery life and weight.

It's the only thing holding back Tablet PC's. 3 hours of battery life doesn't cut it in an 8-10 hour day.

Also Tablet's where highly publicized in 2002 and 2003 . Companies are still making new ones, and Tablet edition of XP has been updated but you don't hear advertising about them much.

I want three things in a tablet. handwriting recognition that works for me(okay that's hard I admit it), A battery that can last all day between charges with Wi-FI enabled. And Under 3 pounds in overall weight. why can't anything come close? The Nokia 770 is tempting but I have to find out if i can add software to it. Like a Bash shell, and SSh client, and an IRC client.

You seem to be pretty much on the mark to me. I think the biggest issue is battery technology, as you mentioned. If I could buy a tablet that would run a full day, I'd spend thousands for it. I wouldn't spend a dime on a tablet that runs 3.

Well, another issue with Tablets, they really aren't any more/better than a laptop. It's quicker to type for *most* people who use a computer fairly often than it is to hand-write things. It's basically a solution to a problem that really doesn't exist. That's why all incarnations of it have failed. Not to mention some people like myself (and it seems you) have terrible handwriting. We might as well forget having any kind of character recognition for our writing.

about newton:
last time i read anything about that device, it still have a community around it. what killed it was not batterylife, apple killed it (or maybe steve jobs). basicly they just pulled the production of it, on something that was making them money from what i have read.

not a apple fan. but i may be going of fan-written material so please, fact check my statements

about the 770:

bash shell, check
ssh client, check
irc client, check (xchat. alltho i guess a terminal based on should work fine ones you get bash going)

its a fully working linux enviroment, in you hand.

http://maemo.org/ is the homepage of the platform/interface the 770 uses. go have a look around.